ntel, Airtel gain more Internet subscriptions in Q3 2017

ntel, Nigeria’s most advanced 4G/LTE network provider raked in the highest number of Internet subscriptions in the third quarter, 2017.

According to the Nigeria Bureau Statistics (NBS) report for Q3, 2017, released last weekend, the GSM platform remained the most dominant means of accessing the Internet for subscribers in Nigeria.

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The report showed that for the period under review, active GSM Internet subscriptions stood at 92.9 million representing a 1.5 per cent growth from the previous quarter’s 91.5 million, and a 0.22 per cent decline from the same period last year.

The NBS report informed that “while GSM Internet subscriptions were on a declining trend over year to date 2016, subscriptions picked up in 2017, showing a 3.3 per cent growth from Q1 2017 to Q3 2017.”

According to the report, active VoIP internet subscription grew 6.3% quarter-on-quarter from 231,116 active subscribers in Q2 2017 to 245,696 in Q3 2017.

This growth was fueled by the increase in ntel VoIP subscriptions which grew 74.6% from the previous quarter to stand at 36,601 in Q3 2017 from 20,963 in Q2 2017.

Nevertheless, the majority of VoIP internet subscriptions are through Smile Networks which controls 85.1% of this segment with 209,095 active VoIP subscriptions in Q3 2017.

Smile declined slightly by 0.5% in the quarter under review and lost 5.8 percentage points to ntel.

According to the report, Airtel robustly gained subscribers both quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year, rating it the biggest contributor to the growth of total active GSM internet subscription with a 7.9 per cent growth compared to Q2 2017, and 15.6 per cent when compared to the same period in Q3 2016.

This reflected in the increase of the company’s market share by 1.4 points from the previous quarter and by 3.2 points from the same period last year.

MTN, Globacom Limited (Glo), EMTS, which traded as Etisalat, now 9Mobile, had market shares of 0.4,-0.7, -1.1 points and 0.2, 0.1.-3.6 points by 3.2 points respectively from the same period last year.

However, MTN had the highest share of all GSM active Internet subscribers, capturing 35 per cent of subscriptions with 32.5 million users, followed by Glo at 29 per cent of subscription with 26.9 million customers.

Airtel at 23.4 per cent of subscriptions, with 21.7 million customers is third.